The latest Gallup Daily Tracking poll has bad news for Barack Obama, and bad news for the Democratic Party. The poll shows John McCain moving into the lead against either Democrat. Meanwhile, polls show Hillary taking advantage of Barack's bad couple of weeks publicity-wise. She's now leading him in the daily preference horserace, 49% to 42%.
On the cross-party horserace, Obama has been trailing McCain since March 15 in the poll, and he now trails him 47% to 43% (the results do not take into account the reaction to Obama's big speech, however, and it will be interesting to see whether the polls tighten up again over the next several days...)
For Hillary, she has being tying McCain since March 13 in the poll, and now trails him 48% to 45%.
I hate to be cruel, but I'm a little dubious about the latest Zogby poll. He has been way off lately (including calling California for Barack back in February...) Zogby has McCain crushing Hillary 45% to 39% and doing similar damage to Obama, 44% to 39%.
What is interesting about these polls, is that voters are stating a preference for McCain -- his lead change is due almost entirely to a switch among Independents -- irrespective of his policy positions. That tells me that all the squabbling and chaos on the Democratic side is making both candidates less likable, and less "stable seeming" for nervous Indies.
Still waiting on something new out of PA from ARG.
Overall, the polls show voters tiring of the Democratic primary, I would say, with many viewing McCain as a safer choice, at least for now. Can the Dems turn it around? Yes. But probably not before they suffer some more pain in the polls, as their ugly race drags on.
Update 3:32 p.m.: A new CBS/NYT poll shows both Dems still ahead of McCain in the horse race match-ups, but by a much narrower margin. Obama leads McCain 48% to 43%, down slightly from 50%-38% in February. Hillary edges McCain 46% to 44%, within the margin of error. Other important findings:
In a turnaround from last month, McCain now leads both Obama and Clinton among independent voters. Obama led McCain by 10 points among this group last month, but he now trails by 8 points. Clinton trails McCain by 11 points among independents.
Obama has the highest favorable rating of the three candidates - 44 percent - followed by Clinton at 39 percent and McCain at 38 percent. Clinton, meanwhile, has the highest unfavorable rating at 41 percent, followed by McCain at 31 percent and Obama at 28 percent.
Among Democratic primary voters, Obama is only slightly preferred over Clinton, 46 percent to 43 percent. Last month Obama led Clinton by a wider margin, 54 percent to 38 percent.
Since last month, Obama's national support among male Democratic primary voters has slipped considerably, though he still retains a 53 percent to 36 percent lead over Clinton among the group. Clinton has gained ground among female Democratic primary voters, and now leads Obama among that group 48 percent to 40 percent.
The complete poll is accessible here. On the satisfaction meter, 76% of Dems said they would be satisfied with Barack and 70% said the same about Hillary. The poll was taken March 15-18, so it really doesn't reflect the full impact of the Rev. Wright scandal and the subsequent Big Speech. The Gallup daily tracking poll is from yesterday (March 19).
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%>
Tell a friend
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'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
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url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
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sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
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%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
